1. Rosie Privitera Biondo said there was a great deal of work, but a different kind of work, in the absence of huge projects. | 2. The recovery, said Dirk Schafer, is here; the real question is, how sustainable is it? | 3. Paul Neidlein addressed the increased level of competition, which had companies seeking work in areas they’d never ventured into. | 4. Doug Irvin gave a construction surety’s perspective, noting that the effects of the downturn were still playing out.

Tom Whittaker, Dunn’s senior vice president and general counselor, noted activity on the coasts and in the South—potential harbingers of better things for this market. “There is probably a little bit of optimism from a national perspective to see some greater opportunities happening outside of this region. Hopefully that’s a sign, because historically things move to the Midwest.”

Don Greenwell noted the impact of
the downturn on the Builders’ Association’s membership roster. Among general contractors, he said, membership was increasing, but “it’s been the subcontractor community and some really long term subcontractor members that really have fallen on some hard times.”

Still, he noted, as far as intermediate term forecast—and without much empirical evidence—“it seems as if what has amounted to a three-year recession for our industry has come to an end.” His own prediction of things to come is that when in place, the recovery will be twice as long as the recession—as long as six years of single-digit growth.

As a mid-size general contractor, said Pearce Construction vice president Darin Heyen, “we’ve been very fortunate through the recession having run the backlog of projects that we had in ’08 and ’09 all the way through the beginning of ’11.” After posting its best year ever in volume and profit in 2010, things flattened, “but we do see quite a bit of backlog coming in 2013, which we’re very encouraged about,” Heyen said.

Jim Schnefke, director of business development for McCownGordon Construction, sees 2012 as being challenging, but there’s a slim chance of better things ahead next year. “I’m not real optimistic,” he said. “I don’t think the geopolitical fundamentals are really going to foster a whole lot of job creation and risk-taking and so forth. I think we’re going to struggle along here for a while.”

Richard Wetzel, a partner at Centric Projects, noted that, as a new company in 2010, “if we weren’t seeing growth right now, we would probably be having a problem.” But things now are good, he said, and there’s a healthy backlog. Overall, he said, “the projects now are just smaller. We as an industry have to adjust with that.”

One of the benefits of growing leaner, said Phil Thomas, president of A.L. Huber Construction, is that “not only do we have our best people working, but subcontractors have their very best people working. To have all the projects going really well it feels good for the first time in a long time.” Still, a revenue pipeline traditionally 70 percent full on January 1 each year has fallen well below that threshold.

As a construction lawyer, Mike Callahan of Stinson Morrison Hecker says the firm anticipates an uptick. “Our construction group has gone from predominately focused on dispute resolution, where we were buried for the last few years, to now we’re seeing a really noticeable uptick in front end stuff: contracts.”

JoLynne Bartolatta, marketing and contracts administrator for Fogel-Anderson Construction, said the company was starting to see clients refinancing with low rates. “With that,” she said, “they are saving so much money with interest that they’re reinvesting into building. We’ve been building our back-log for the last few months based on that.”

The Design Community

As participants acknowledged, construction itself doesn’t get going without the architecture and engineering work at its foundation. Again, optimism came through. “I think it’s kind of by firm,” said Rory O’Connor. “I was down at Gould Evans this morning, and they are saying that they are busier than they have been in the last couple of years.”